14 Answers
14

I've had sneaking increase simply by staying in one place while I waited for enemies to move for me to get a better shot. It seems that you can increase sneaking simply by being crouched near hostile enemies.

This would fit with previous elder scrolls titles: you need to be hidden near enemies that could spot you to level up sneaking.
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Joachim SauerNov 11 '11 at 8:10

1

Notice the sneak crosshairs has three states: a flat line, an eye, and an eye that says DETECTED. It seems that when it's a flat line, there's no-one around to spot you, and you know that sneaking won't increase the skill.
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SevenSidedDieNov 11 '11 at 8:38

2

@Seven You can Have the flat line and be 'HIDDEN' from a nearby enemy.
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ArkiveNov 11 '11 at 8:48

4

Confirmed. You can have the flat line and still gain sneak xp. I was of course still in range of an enemy
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ArkiveNov 11 '11 at 9:04

Then I'm curious what exactly the three states mean. Could be a good question.
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SevenSidedDieNov 11 '11 at 18:07

You gain sneak xp if you have the flat line and are moving close enough to someone who potentially could see you.

The eye means that you are seen. With or without the text detected. Makes no difference.
The line mean you are hidden. The short duration of the text hidden I believe is nothing but a service statement.

What I do to get easy sneak, is completely undress the character (armor and boots makes noise), walk up in a corner behind a sleeping person. And then keep walking into the corner, so that i stay in the same place but is moving while sneaking. The line just has to be flat. No "hidden" necessarry. I get no xp while not moving. Auto-walking in the corner seems to not work this time. Maybe they did not want us to get xp while not in front of the screen.

To get better you need to look at every part of a quest in a sneak only manner. Look out for opportunities to sneak as there are millions throughout the game.

When sneaking, archery is your best friend as it lets you attack from afar whithout being seen. Another tip is the firing an arrow at a wall near an enemy will draw his attention to the spot and opens your oppotunity for an attack. Note that at the begining of the game you should chose the warrior stone over the theives stone as sneak attacking will be a lot more important than sneaking around somebody.

It is also important that you use light armor over heavy as it lets you move quicker whilst sneaking. Remember to take your time whilst sneaking as going to fast whilst near an enemy will alert it.

The best idea for a newcomer to skyrim is to head straight to the thieves guild. This is located in riften aand once your trigger their quest line you will receive the theives armour(light) after running a few errands for the leaders. Note that a certain degree of combat skill is required to reach the theives guild as some enemies are around that area.

Whilst attacking forts, camps and other locastions you should remember, as a theif, NOT to charge through the front gate. Instead, approach the location from hilltops and inconspicuous areas. Water is your friend and hiding beneath it is very benefitial. The best tip is to get up on a hilltop and rain down arrows.

The most important thing you need to know abotut sneaking is that when an enemy is looking for you (half eye open) they will go towards the spot from which you got their attention! There fore you should get away from the place that you fired a shot until you are hidden and then repeat your process.

Forget about daggers and two-handed weapons; sneaking is all about archery!

Go to High Hrothgar, wait for the Graybeards to pray, then crouch behind them and attack. Attack them three times, then switch to another Greybeard. As long as you don't hit them four times in succession, you will not cause them to attack you.

Attacking the Greybeards is pointless, since they are essential NPCs. You will get killed by them because Master Arngeir is level 150 according to the game files.
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ヴァイシャリNov 7 '12 at 16:04

@One-One Did you try it? Because I did it yesterday and I got my sneak to 100 in the matter of an hour. The only important thing is not to get detected and it is very easy when Greybeards are sleeping or praying.
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kyooryuJul 30 '13 at 8:50

Fully open eye means you are spotted and enemy knows your location, somewhat open eye means enemies are aware of someone sneaking and are cautious, but not aware of your exact location, flat line means you're unnoticed.

As for the leveling, as some people suggested, you can level up as long as you pass a stealth check (i.e.: sneaking behind/near a hostile enemy unnoticed) but you can also level it up by successfully connecting sneak attacks (you'll know since the game lets you know with a message on the top-left corner).

If you are playing on Xbox/PS3 all you need to do is pick any character you want and play through till you get to the caves where the bear is. Sneak along the right side of the cave until you reach the rock that is right next to the sleeping bear. On top of the rock, there is a crease in the wall that you can sneak into, and you will not slide off the wall to either side, and you are still "hidden" from the bear. Get a toothpick or something, run into the wall, and sick the toothpick into the controller. It takes a bunch of hours to get to 100 this way but you can max out your sneak before even finishing the first quest in the game.

Another option is in one of the first dungeons, there's a portion called "Bleak Falls," and there's a waterfall overlooking a bridge that has a draugar patrolling it. Go into sneak mode, and park yourself on the ledge. The draugaur will detect you at first, but its pathing will cause it to run in such a fashion that if it detects you, it'll loose sight of you quickly enough and thus drop aggro. Just park yourself on the waterfall until you think you've leveled enough.

Go to a bedroom where someone is sleeping, i did Ancano's bedroom at the college of winterhold, walk backwards until you hit the wall and then use a girls stretchy hair tie or a rubber band and go around left joystick and up around l1 and l2 so that you continue to walk backwards. Watch an entire NBA basketball game, come back and sneak away. Easy.

Kill an enemy, then walk around a corner. Set your controller upside down once you're hidden while sneaking, and the dead enemy can't see you, keep your controller upside down with your guy walking into a corner and the analog pushed up. Then sit back and watch a movie while your level goes from 15 to 100.